The Biden administration this week took ambitious steps toward a new era of automobile transportation in the United States.
"The Biden administration today released a road map for building out a national network of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations as part of its plan to combat climate change," reports Arianna Skibell for E&E News.
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, approved by Congress in November, enabled the charging station plan, according to Skibell. Two packages of money will fund the cause: $5 billion for state transportation departments to support the expansion and an "additional $2.5 billion is also available in grant opportunities to help connect rural and marginalized communities to electric vehicles," according to Ley.
At the federal level, a new electric vehicle office, shared between the U.S. Department of Transportation and U.S. Department of Energy, will coordinate the work. "Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg are expected to sign [December 14] an agreement authorizing their offices to leverage resources to expand EV infrastructure across the country," reports Ley.
Additional coverage of the electric vehicle charging bill is available from an article by Matthew Daly for the Associated Press.
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